


and cleave with sorrow to aching hearts

by plinys



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Angst, Kolinahr (Star Trek), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19215739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “We have discussed this before,” Spock points out.And Jim cannot help the bitter twist to his voice when he replies, “Yeah, years ago.”[Or: Spock leaves.]





	and cleave with sorrow to aching hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, a research project at the University of Oxford to document the history of the Kirk/Spock fandom as a social, cultural, and literary movement.
> 
> This research is being conducted by Shari Landa (shari.landa@some.ox.ac.uk). Please scroll to the chapter endnotes for more information and to see how you can get involved!

At first he thinks that he's heard Spock wrong.

He has to have.

There’s no other explanation.

No other  _ logical  _ explanation. 

Everything seems wrong. He’s seen this scene a hundred times in nightmares that Jim will never admit to having. His worst nightmares are always the ones about losing Spock. That’s the one thing he fears more than anything else. Normally it’s devastating, painful, a mission gone wrong, an argument where one of them wears an impassive face, but it’s never like this… So normal that it could be any other night.

They’re sitting here in their living room, having their post dinner tea in the apartment that they share near the Starfleet Academy. Jim is on a break after another five year mission, considering taking some time as a Professor or even the gentle ease of retirement, and Spock is doing some work with the Vulcan Embassy. It’s a peaceful and normal life, a  _ happy  _ life as far as Jim is concerned, not one that would warrant this. 

A small voice in the back of his head, with a hint of concern, reminds him to  _ breathe _ .

Despite everything, Jim follows the gentle command, sucking in a breath that is too fast and not enough, and - “This a bad dream.” 

He’s seen many expressions on Spock’s face. Learned over their years together to tell the difference between each and everyone of his microexpressions, but this is one look that hurts Jim more than any of the others. Because the only way to describe the way that Spock is looking at him would be  _ pity  _ and Jim doesn’t need that. 

“We have discussed this before,” Spock points out.

And Jim cannot help the bitter twist to his voice when he replies, “Yeah, years ago.”

It is easier to focus on being bitter than it is to focus on that hurt that is all consuming. 

Spock was right, technically they had discussed this years ago. But that was before they had first fallen into each other’s arms, before their bond was formed, before they started on all of  _ this _ . Spock had explained to Jim, this particular aspect of Vulcan culture. A purging of all emotions. Back then Spock had explained it as a way of connecting with his Vulcan roots, with that part of himself, a way of choosing between the two parts of himself. Back then, before they became a  _ we, _ it would have made sense to Jim that Spock would want to give up the last few vestiges of his human self, but now that Jim knows Spock as intimately that he does, he cannot imagine that that conversation from  _ years  _ ago could still hold relevance. 

That it could still be what Spock wants for himself.

It would be different if this was an inevitably nearly everyone underwent. Rather than a rarity, that seldom ever underwent. 

A deliberate choice.

A choice that Spock wanted to make.

But Spock had spoke of it then as a distant thing, something for when he retired from Starfleet, and Jim had just… Pushed it to the back of his mind. Ignored it, because once they had gotten together, he had imagined that Spock would have gotten rid of the whole notion. 

That he would choose Jim over everything else.

Jim would have chosen him over everything else. 

“Say it again,” Jim says, because he needs to hear this again. Needs to make certain that this is real.

The look like pity falls away, replaced instead with the usual stoic look that Jim would always associate with  _ other  _ Vulcans. “I have decided to begin the process of Kolinahr.”

He hadn’t heard him wrong.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

Hearing the words a second time does not make them any easier to process. Jim wants to ask why, wants to ask how he was not good enough for Spock to choose to stay with him, wants to ask what he had done wrong to deserve this.

But he can’t find the words.

Can’t find any words at all. 

Not when faced with the way Spock is still sitting there, holding his evening cup of tea in his hands, and saying those words so casually. As if he cannot see how Jim’s world is falling apart. As if he cannot  _ feel  _ it. 

Maybe he can’t, because when Jim reaches out for the familiar bond, that one that has been there for years. So long that he sometimes forgets about it, that he feels it so naturally part of himself, he only feels the mental block that Spock put up in return. Unable to or  _ unwilling  _ to feel how much this news is hurting Jim. 

“Why,” Jim eventually manages to ask.

Because he needs to know this.

Needs to know  _ why  _ he is losing the love of his life.

Jim can barely listen as Spock starts to explain, starts to give Jim the answer that he had asked for even when he knew that he didn’t want it. Clearly Spock had thought about all of this, carefully planned it all out, maybe even planned out this conversation. The words are too rehearsed, almost as emotionless as Spock now wants to become.

“You cannot deny that my emotions had gotten in the way many times during our five year missions,” Spock says, meeting Jim’s eyes, looking for something in them. Agreement perhaps. Something that Jim cannot give, not when his heart feels like it’s breaking. “I have been emotionally compromised a number of times. Jeopardizing the safety of our crew, because I-”

“Because of  _ me _ ,” Jim finishes. 

It is not impossible to read between the lines. 

To see what Spock is trying not to say. 

_ Emotionally compromised. _

A weakness.

Jim is a weakness. 

What has always felt like  _ love  _ and the  _ greatest thing that has ever happened to him  _ to Jim has apparently felt like nothing more than a weakness to Spock. More than that, something to be ashamed of. Something to be locked away forever, forgotten, a blemish on his otherwise spotless  _ Vulcan  _ record.

All of Jim’s nightmares could not compare, could not have prepared him for this, for Spock sitting there saying that he was not enough. That he never had been. That this bond that they had shared for years now was nothing more than a flaw. To turn everything that they had built together into a regret. 

_ For how long _ , he cannot help but wonder.

But he cannot ask those words.

Cannot brace himself for  _ that  _ answer.

So he remains silent, even when his eyes start to burn, with tears ready to be shed. Even as he drags his gaze away from Spock, refusing to let Spock see him cry in what might be their last moments together. He is so close to breaking, knows that he will at any moment, but tries to hold onto his composure for a little bit longer.

“This has always been my intention,” Spock says, the words so coldly, so matter of face. 

That all Jim can really ask is, “When?”

Maybe… If there was time… He could convince Spock that this was a mistake. That Jim wasn’t a weakness, that love was worth all the risks that came with it. 

But that hope is dashed as quick as it comes, when Spock says, “I leave for Vulcan in the morning.”

“When were you planning on telling me,” Jim says, hating how small his voice sounds to his own ears. 

“I’m telling you right now.” 

“Dammit Spock!”

“I had thought of telling you sooner,” Spock admits, at his outburst, “However, I had reached the conclusion that you would take this negatively, and therefore-”

“How else was I supposed to take it?”

This time, when Spock says the words again, they are softer. And for the first time since this conversation began Jim feels the hint of an emotion that is not his own. Proof that this is hurting Spock too. “This has always been my intention.”

Jim knows, somewhere deep inside of himself, that there is no fighting Spock on this. His lover is incredibly stubborn in his own right, especially when he sets his mind on something. Spock does not waver, Jim had learned this long ago. Though now it comes to hurt him.

Spock is here.

For now.

Jim has tonight.

Tonight will never be enough, but Jim can pretend for a little while. Can make a moment that would last forever. 

He moves to kiss Spock. Kisses him like it’s the first kiss, like it’s their  _ last  _ kiss. Holds onto Spock and pours every emotion he has ever felt into that kiss. The  _ love  _ that he has for Spock, the  _ need  _ that he has for him, the  _ heartbreak  _ that is still lingering there in the back of his mind. 

Spock holds onto Jim, holds him in place, kisses him back. Finally letting that emotional block slip down. Jim can feel it all then, Spock’s  _ determination  _ to do this, Spock’s ever present  _ love  _ for Jim, Spock’s barely there hint of  _ regret _ . 

It’s not enough. 

It will never be enough.

But one last time.

One last memory.

When they break apart, Jim says, “I need you,” as he’s said a hundred of times before and Spock understands. Spock knows exactly what it is that Jim needs. Even though it hurts, even though Jim knows that in the morning this will only make the pain of losing Spock so much worse, he cannot lose tonight. 

So he pulls Spock with him, away from the couch, away from the living room, and the apartment that they’ve build a life in together, and tugs him back to the bedroom. To the room where they’ve made love many times before. 

To the room where they’ll make love for the very last time. 

The tears that he had been doing such a good job of holding off start to fall now. Jim cannot stop them even if he had wanted to, and for a second, in the middle of tugging off all of their layers. Spock’s eyes meet his own and Jim sees the hint of wetness gathered there in Spock’s eyes as well. 

But it’s too late to stop it.

Too late to turn back time.

This was always inevitable in a way.

So he kisses Spock again that way neither of them have to explain. Neither of them have to linger on their regrets and mistakes and be  _ emotionally compromised _ . Instead, they do what they have done hundreds of times before, as if this is just another night, as if there will be another in the future. 

And when it’s all over.

Even though everything hurts.

Even though he wants to cry.

It would be so easy to lay there. To stay as, still as he can, pretending to be asleep when Spock leaves. He tries to do so, tries to accept that for what it is, to keep his eyes shut as he listens to the sound of Spock putting himself back together and preparing to walk right out the door. To walk right out of Jim’s life.

He manages it for a moment. Just until Spock pauses, hesitant at the edge of the bed, before leaning down and pressing the ghost of a kiss against his forehead. 

Before Spock can pull away he reaches out, holding onto Spock’s hand, holding him in place.

Normally this level of contact, of  _ intimacy, _ grants Jim that full breadth of Spock’s emotions. But this time the hand that Jim is holding offers him no emotional feedback. The walls that Spock had let slip for a moment back up in place and stronger than ever. All Jim feels is a cold hand in his, the hand of a stranger.

“Spock,” he says, because what more can he say.

What words can he form to convince Spock to stay?

When they both know it is too late.

“Spock.”

He doesn’t tug his hand away, something which Jim considers a small miracle. For a second he imagines holding onto Spock’s hand for the rest of time, if only to guarantee that he never leaves.

If that was what it would take, he would do it. 

He would do anything.

“Spock.”

His voice cracks over the name he’s said a thousand times, and as he stands up and looks up to meet those eyes, eyes that he knows better than his own, for the first time Jim cannot read the emotions hidden with in.

It is as if Spock is already gone.

All he sees is a cold steady gaze fixed on him, waiting and watching, but not  _ feeling _ .

“Spock.”

The sobs when they come are inevitable. He feels as if he has been waiting, minutes, hours, a  _ lifetime, _ for his composure to crack. When it finally does it does not feel like relief, as other tears have before, but a stubbornness. 

Crying won’t change things

Jim knows that.

Knows that if there was ever a chance to get Spock to change his mind that the moment has passed. 

It is there somewhere, in the choked off noise, the tears that he cannot stop, his legs weak as he slumps down in defeat no longer too proud to beg, the hand that he’s still holding Spock in place with shaking like a leaf that he finally manages to say something different. 

Finally manages to say the one thing word that matters - “Stay.”

The one thing Jim needs above all else.

“Stay.”

The one thing that Spock refuses to do.

“Stay.”

He looks up with blurry eyes to meet Spock’s but they are just as cold as they’d been in the beginning. As they might have been a lifetime ago when they were strangers meetings for the first time. Jim wishes he could go back to the man that he was there, to stop himself, before he fell for those eyes. To prepare himself for this heartbreak.

But a part of him knows, that even if he could go back, he wouldn’t change a thing.

Even this, even losing Spock now, was worth it, if only to have had him for all the other moments. 

“I love you,” he says, one last time, knowing the battle is already lost. Knowing that this will be the last time.

There just for a moment, he thinks he has a chance, he looks up through blurry eyes to meet Spock’s own eyes and can see the pain, the longing, the  _ regret,  _ can feel it in his own very soul. 

Spock leans down to being their lips together one last time, and Jim feels everything, deep somewhere inside his very soul. In the space that had always belonged to Spock. Has belong to Spock ever since the beginning. That will always belong to Spock even after he’s gone. 

Jim kisses him back, knowing that it is his last, committing every moment of his kiss to memory. 

The feel of Spock’s lips against his own, still cold but familiar at least. 

The hand that tightens in his hold, holding him steady one last time. 

The way his heart beats in his chest, loud and foolishly trying to believe that this could be something more than just a  _ last kiss _ .

But then just as quickly as it had come, it disappears, Spock pulls back, and suddenly Jim is cold and alone once more. Watches, his heart truly breaking, as Spock draws back into his Vulcan control like a mask. Eyes hardening as if he truly never felt anything at all. As if he had already undergone the process of Kolinahr.

Defeat settles deep inside of Jim.

_ Acceptance. _

_ The final stage of grief.  _

Finally, releasing the hand that he had been holding. 

No longer able to hold back the sobs that shake through his whole body, hard enough that he feels as if he’s fallen apart.

Forcing himself to watch, as Spock walks out of the door, without even once looking back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

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